


Counting Songs for Breathless Teens

by SleepwalkingTimDrake



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo (SleepwalkingTimDrake's card) [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Detective Comics (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bruce Wayne and kids dying problems, Detective Comics #940, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Jor-El - Freeform, Kidnapping, Mentioned Bruce Wayne, Mister Oz, One Shot, Sensory Deprivation, Tim Drake-centric, locked up and left behind, trying to use campy self help in crazy situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 12:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepwalkingTimDrake/pseuds/SleepwalkingTimDrake
Summary: Picking up where the end of Detective Comics #940's left off.Tim Drake is left in a empty prison cell, the light leaving with Mister Oz as he closes the door on his captives.Now Tim is wonders, how can you tell time with only your thoughts?(Locked up and Left Behind) Bad Things Happen Bingo entree





	Counting Songs for Breathless Teens

**Author's Note:**

> This sense begins almost instantly after the last panel of Detective Comics #940 where Tim Drake is standing in a dark glass cell, calling after Mister Oz saying "My friends will come." Who, himself, Ignores Tim and is about to close the door and take away the only light source 
> 
> Thanks so much for BlackRoseAki and Whistle_Mist being my betas tonight. Love you both.

 

And he’s gone.

 

And so is the light.

 

Tim drops like his strings had been cut. His hands skitter across the floor, the rubber of his grip makes no echoes beyond their own muted sounds. He hasn’t hit the wall yet, no pressure against his fingertips aside from the what he creates, no texture that he can discern in the dark. It’s unnerving. Like floating... Just...he’s not sure swimming had ever felt so much like nothing at all.

 

Nothing.

 

His heartbeat kicks up in his chest. Nothing. He can feel nothing except for the ground where he’s sitting. Nothing, nodda, zilch, there’s nothing here. His neck, his shoulders, his back, and all the way down Tim’s spine. A sudden stiffness crept in. His heart is too loud, he can feel it in his chest, too much, too quick, Tim’s body felt like a Freeze victim, cold and unmoving. Frozen. Even now, as Tim tried to make his arms move, his muscles were unwilling to let his hands continue their exploration. All on their own, they seem overcome by the same fear that was paralyzing Tim’s spine. What if… what if there is nothing there? Has he ever dealt with nothingness before? How did it feel? What he knew in his mind to only be the lightest touch against the floor seared and scalded his palms. Too much, it was too much. Tim’s heart beat against the collar of his suit, and suddenly he was frighteningly aware of its pressure. Choking him. Wrapped tight like a noose under his Adam’s apple. He wanted to rip it off. Or was it his Adam’s apple, his own throat that was choking him?

 

Tim’s lungs burned, and he is suddenly and startlingly aware of the fact that he hasn’t been breathing.

 

For a second, he considers starving off the impulse, something in his gut told him there was no air in this cell of nothing.

 

Control that feeling, take a page out of the numerous self-help books Jason kept giving him as jokes and count to ten. 

 

He sucks in a breath and begins counting.

 

Breath in.

 

Hold it (it’s air, it’s oxygen, and some of the pain eases)

 

Tim lets it out with a shaky word.

 

“One.”

 

Breath in. (What if the air was poison, what if it wasn’t air, would he be able to tell?)

Hold it. (How long was this taking? It felt like a forever between each breath.)

 

He lets it out, counting the numbers. He’d never been more aware of his own breathing. Like the autopilot had been turned off, leaving him to feel as if he was left driving the Bat-Plane for the first time.

 

“Two.”

 

Why was his voice so shaky? Jason wouldn’t be whispering numbers to himself. He’d be doing something, anything to get out. Finding a way out. Jason never gave up. Tim’s fingers curl into themselves, His autopsy had shown that... Smoke inhalation. He’d dragged himself out of the way of the bomb.

 

Why couldn’t Tim do this?

 

Why couldn’t he do something other than sitting?

 

Than count?

 

Than breath- Tim’s lungs burn at the thought.

 

Oh god, Tim forgot to breathe.

 

He sucks down air and holds it. Counting again.

 

“Three...”

 

Why did it feel so important to say out loud?

 

Was he trying to fill space? In this nothing? Tim’s fingers made muted squeaks, as he dragged them back towards himself. He couldn’t leave them so far away from his self, could he? It was cruel? How far where they? Where were they? He could feel them, but he couldn’t place them. Oh, maybe cause there wasn’t any space to place them within. It’s nothing, all nothing. Nothing but the nothing. Where were his hands? He can feel the ground against them. Too much ground. Why wasn’t there anything else? Something else, Tim didn’t want this. To be lost in space. He sucks in another breath as his heart started to sear in the confines of his chest.

 

“-Four.” It felt strangled.

 

What if he gets lost in it? The dark? His hands where home-here-near him now. Even twisting them in the dark felt disassociated. Like he was only imagining it. A world without nothing.

 

The door!

 

He kicks out his foot. Tim misjudged it. His toe connecting with the previously glass-like surface with a muted thump and a hiss from his own mouth. He makes an effort to take another breath.

 

Hold it.

 

“Five...” It felt dulled from his lips.

 

God, why was everything so dampened here?

 

Was the door really right before him?

 

If his toe wasn’t hurting so much in his boot, Tim might have thought it was never there…

 

He reached out for it, and when his figures connect to the cool glass, he can breathe again. The choking in is throat receded.

 

“Tim... You’re alright.” His voice feels raw and sore. Even though it had only been a few moments since he’d last spoke.

 

“You’re friends- My friends will come.” Some part of him rebukes that. Points out how just hours-moments-days-seconds ago he’s died in their eyes. Would there be a body? Would they bury him next to his Mother? His Father? Would he have the honor of a spot in the Wayne Cemetery? Would Bruce want that reminder? Would Bruce miss him? Would Dick? Would anyone notice something wrong with the crime scene? Would he be remembered in death but left here to rot like- No.

 

Tim quickly shucks off a glove, his fingers tangling in the kevlar, sticky with sweat, he rips at it. Something in him unwilling to part with the wall’s stabilizing pressure for too long. He shoves the extra fabric into his belt and presses his exposed palm to the glass. It feels like a shock of electricity, and he imagined heat boiling under his palm. There’s too little else, Tim knew, too little stimulation, for the sweat-damp glass against his equally slick palm to feel anything else but pain. But it was something, unmoving and more than the patch of ground he sat on, grounding with the feeling of something in the dark. Of knowing his space. Even a little more.

 

“Six”

 

(Was he sure that was six? Did he forget to count or forget to breathe? How long had it been?)

 

He needs to asses his- no, the situation.

 

Step back, Tim

 

Subconsciously he presses harder against the glass. His one Anchor at the moment. Even with the buzzing under his skin verging on painful again. Tim didn’t want to release, even for a stupid bit.

 

Metaphorically, Tim. He snarks back to himself.

 

He takes in another measured breath, the air doesn’t smell like anything, lemon vinegar cleaning products or otherwise.

 

“Seven...”

 

Take a breath, take stock, decide what to do next.

 

Do what Batman taught you.

 

“Okay, I can do this. Take a breath.”

 

Why was it so important to speak out loud?

 

No one could hear him and if anything he was counting on it.

 

Tim rests his forehead against the unseen door and breathes again, imagining his breath cooling against the glass in fog. Slowly dissipating. And then returning as he breathes out again.

 

“Eight... Nine...”

 

Steady.

 

They don’t know you’re here. They need you to be steady. To breath. And figure this out.

 

You’re taught by the greatest detective. You can figure this out. Bruce would trust you to figure this out.

 

They need you to help them.

 

Tim’s breath escapes him again, and it comes back shaky.

 

“T-ten...Take stock, what do I have?”

 

His voice was- was he losing it?

 

Was he thirsty?

 

Would they even come with water if he was?

 

Somehow, Tim thinks, as he jerkily rested his forehead against the cooler door, the buzzing of sensation filling his brain at the touch.

 

He had a feeling they wouldn’t.

 

Tim takes another breath. (how long has it been?)

 

It comes out with a choked laugh.

 

No one was coming.

 

“Eleven.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so quick explanation. Since Tim and Damian's age difference has become smaller since Tim came back from Jor-El's prison. My working theory is that time moved differently in Tim's prison. As it would have to be outside of time (because Evil Batman Tim was there) So I like to think the reason Damian is 13 and Tim's 16 even though Damian was 10-ish when he joined batfam and Tim was 16-ish at THAT time too. That Time just wasn't the same. In fact perhaps time really didn't pass at all. 
> 
> Besides, it's hard to tell time by just your thoughts.
> 
> Leave a comment! I'm hoping to continue this in a series with another character who'd had an age change recently :D and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this change in Tim's age and how you think it happened.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
